Pushpa jhuk gaya? TMC's Jahangir Khan drops out of Falta repoll at last moment

Two days before repolling in the Falta assembly constituency in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress candidate and Abhishek Banerjee’s aide Jahangir Khan announced on Tuesday that he will not contest the election. With the BJP having swept the Assembly elections in Bengal, Falta, which is part of the Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency from where Abhishek is the incumbent MP, did not see the presence of any top Trinamool Congress leaders during the run-up to the repoll. Read Full Story While the results for 293 seats in Bengal were announced on May 4, the Election Commission of India scrapped the polls in Falta Assembly constituency, citing “severe electoral offences and subversion of the democratic process.” Cases of voter intimidation and alleged tampering with EVMs, including blocking opposition candidates’ names, were reported across booths in Falta. Inadequate CCTV footage also made it impossible to verify the fairness of the polling process. It was Jahangir Khan who had thrown a challenge to IPS officer Ajay Pal Sharma, who was brought in from Uttar Pradesh as poll observer ahead of the Bengal Assembly elections. Sharma’s reputation as an encounter specialist earned him the moniker “Singham”, a tag that followed him to Bengal. Khan, meanwhile, referred to himself as “Pushpa”, the character from the Allu Arjun-starrer blockbuster ‘Pushpa – The Rise’. “If he is Singham, then I am Pushpa,” Khan had said after Sharma visited his house ahead of the polls and warned family members against intimidating voters on election day. Now, with Khan pulling out of the repoll race on the last day of campaigning, West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari took a dig at the TMC leader’s earlier self-comparison to a popular film character, saying, “Pushpa said, ‘Jhukega nahi’ (will not bow down). Now Pushpa is nowhere.” He also warned supporters that the withdrawal is likely a calculated manoeuvre. "Nephew (Abhishek Banerjee) is nowhere to be seen...Now Pushpa is down in the dumps. He said he won't contest the election. This is Trinamool's conspiracy to show that they've anyway won so might as well not contest. You (referencing voters) have the opportunity to vote peacefully after 10 years. I want 100 per cent votes, for you all to press the third button (on the EVM machine), the lotus," Adhikari said in Bengali. "I would like to say that this is part of TMC's strategy. They want you to believe that BJP has already won and you may skip your vote. But people of Falta must remember that after 10 years, you have been able to cast your mandate. I urge 100 per cent voting on the poll day," Adhikari added. Addressing a press conference while bowing out of the race, Khan said, "I am the son of Falta and I want Falta to be at peace and grow. Our CM Suvendu Adhikari is giving a special package for the development of Falta, which is why I am separating myself from the re-polling of the constituency." Hitting out at his own party candidate, Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh wondered, “If Jahangir Khan was Pushpa, then why did he bow?” Ahead of the May 4 results, Abhishek Banerjee also issued a warning, saying that even in “ten lifetimes,” the “Bangla Birodhi Gujarati gang and their stooge Gyanesh Kumar” could not put “even a dent in my DIAMOND HARBOUR MODEL.” “Bring everything you’ve got. I challenge the entire Union of India,” he added. However, just after the BJP swept the polls, Jahangir Khan’s office was attacked and vandalised. Over the weekend, Khan began reviving his office to prepare for the upcoming repolls, which was followed by the surprise decision to withdraw from the upcoming contest. Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress smelled a rat in the entire development, saying, “The decision taken by Jahangir Khan to withdraw from the Falta re-poll is his personal decision and not that of the party. Since the election results were declared on 4th May, more than 100 of our party workers have been arrested in Falta AC alone.” When questioned on why there was no campaigning from the Trinamool Congress’s side, West Bengal minister Dilip Ghosh said that in previous years, they never campaigned but instead used the brute force of antisocial elements to suppress people’s voting rights in Falta for years. “The results are already known. The goondas have run away and there is no support from the police anymore. Who will campaign for them?” Ghosh wondered. Ends